Castlevania: Aria of the Ascending Soul
Written By: Lady Lunar Phoenix
Beta By: Lady Lunar Phoenix
A/N: Cuz I got asked, so the 'maids' are the Persephones' of Aria and Dawn. Its just that they 'are' maids, its their job. Imagine trying to tell a non hunter 'sure when the Persephone comes by ask' as opposed to 'sure when the zombie maid comes by ask'... Hope that helps
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Everything was artwork.
From the subtle whorls of color in the paint on the walls, the curves and lines on the window frame with curtains of soft white hanging besides them. Even the long couches meant for sitting were crafted to have this matching flow of lines and patterns. While it would impress a person on the dedication of a museum to carry a theme to the bitter end. That this was the Castle made all of it almost mundane.
Almost.
Along the walls were a multitude of art pieces, marble pillars were of Gods from around the world. Their clothes replicated in stone crafted so skillfully as to appear as what they would have worn in their respective lands. Each God was depicted with his hands raised to the ceiling, seemingly holding up the very castle ceiling, painted to depict the sky above. But the faces down turned to face the ground towards were a guest would likely stand if they were looking up at these 'Pillars of the World'.
The walls themselves were painted in warm shades of blue that faded into black along the corners of the wall. The windows were gilded in gold and lit the Marble Gallery with the outside light. While the paintings were of more traditional fare, landscapes of nature in various times of day and local. Town and cityscapes as well, and if one were to pay attention, they were also of the same time of day as what was outside.
Something that may not have been as important to notice, except the occasional...
'Soma?' Yoko found herself mesmerized by the sight of the white haired young adult's presence in the paintings. When she first caught sight of him, he had been leaning against an unlit lamp on a city street. The buildings towered over him, and there were people milling about around him. But in human traffic of a rainbow of colors, he stood out with his white and blue color scheme.
As she turned her head slightly to ask if Julius saw the painting as well, the painting.. 'moved' the people seemed to go forward, and Soma's arms uncrossed and he appeared to be waving. But the movement came stilted the way of those old first generation holographic pictures did.
"I wonder if Soma can do anything from there," Julius mused mostly into his beard, but Yoko picked up on it as well.
"You see him as well, that's a relief..." she waved to Soma again before turning her gaze to see if he was in any other paintings. She did find a desolate snowy landscape painting. Written in the snow were the words 'get out he's trying to break free' was scrawled in Japanese, quick and sloppy.
"So long as its not a sign that he died," Julius answered as he turned his focus down the long passage before them. He tugged at his beard in frustration while something kept pulling his vision lower... "Yoko stay fluid..."
It was the only warning he could give before the floor erupted upward. Thick stone shattering as a giant metal covered fist punched its way through. The room exploded into a deafening boom, dust, shards to large chunks of stone were flung into the air before gravity protested. Reaching up to reclaim the stone and people that had been knocked up into the air.
Obscured by the dust, it was difficult to see what punched the floor out from under them. Time stopped as they fell, the stones frozen mid tumble in the air. Allowing the two hunters to fairly skip lower and lower to the ground. Not that it was easy for even the dust was frozen and pushing 'that' out of the way was problematic.
But they managed to finally get down before a quick glance up assured them that nothing life threatening was going to land on their heads. Then time resumed dropping the stones about them as Yoko sent her lightning orbs above to shatter any particularly hazardous stones into dust. While stones large enough to crush a skull tumbled to the ground cracking chunks off or breaking all together.
The pillars that they had seen above extended down to this chamber. Revealing that they weren't so much pillars holding up the ceiling, as they were sword hilts to blades pinning 'down' a body just below. What light was far above, there were no torches or candles here.
"Well now... you seem to have fallen into a bit of a bother..." A woman's voice called down from somewhere above. Then high above orbs of light began to drift down revealing a witch on a broom floating about the air. It was from her that the orbs of light came from as they revealed the long blades that came down pinning the body...
"Kinda gotten bigger huh?" Yoko coughed as she spoke, from the dust. But they could see the reptilian face staring down at them. The oddly, why 'exactly' was he fixated on, Egyptian stylized armor and missing half his body. They had dropped on a floor that was just below the monsters' rib cage. Each of the pillar/swords had pierced down into his arms that were extended on the left and right of them. While two other pillars had gone straight through Galamoths' shoulders pinning a forearm down.
He was postured in a way that made Yoko think of someone forced to sit straight back in a chair with their arms straight and proper on the armrests. With the way the right hand was still pinned down, the dust mixing with the semi fresh blood. Yet the blades continued through the stone floor and Julius had to wonder if the swords were piercing down the legs to a chair or floor. Especially since the idea of a leg joining in a potential fight was 'not' what he wanted.
The witch glided down on her broom, the lamp showing a warm red flame that hung at the tip while she looked about. "Someone's being naughty," she noted even as she waved away the dust still lingering in the air. She had bright blond hair, and her outfit was as small and tight as any other witch they had come across in the castle or the fake one. A band of purple over her breasts and a matching one around the base of the cone of her hat. Sitting on the back of her broom stick was a single black cat who was indifferently washing their paw at the moment.
"One of Soma's?" Julius inquired as Galamoths' hand curled into a fist, what light that came from the lantern was too weak to reveal the reptiles' face.
"We all are, even him... But well you know what's going on," the Witch answered as an orb of lightning ignite around Galamoths' hand revealing his face. And he had been skinned. It was something that took the pair back a bit to see. A large swath of Galamoths' face had been skinned, poorly, off revealing dried out muscle under it, but also patches of still clinging reptile skin. One eye had been gouged out some how, and the headdress he wore had been mangled and twisted. While his jaw had been broken and half of it appeared to be missing with the tongue dangling out of the mouth.
And that Soma had done 'this' to someone?
Soma never, in this incarnation, met Galamoth, he had gained the soul via small containers that had been placed about the Castle. So seeing Galamoth pinned down sitting under the marble gallery his skin flayed off part of his head. His jaw broken and torn, while the Alura Une was fine and even this witch appeared fine as well.
Maybe Soma was still dealing with anger issues?
The witch flew off into the air so that she was roughly at eye level with the giant alien/reptile/demon being as Julius and Yoko dove away from the electric orb. Meanwhile the light from the orb revealed the hanging flesh from Galamoths' arm. Blood spilled from the wound as he tried to reach out and grab at Julius. His claws were chipped and damaged, but they were there still on his hands...
"Hey! We know our orders! Start doing what you're supposed to!" the Witch called out, arms crossing her distractedly sized breasts.
But Galamoth didn't even look at her, he couldn't really 'shift' his body about, but he could shift his neck still. So he peered as well as he could around the witch to try and manifest another electric orb.
"I'm 'talking' to you! You think you're position sucks right now, just wait until Lord Soma gets word of this. Or even the Young Master!" The witch shrieked as in response as a wave of electricity sprang to life in front of the reptile. She threw up an eldritch shield of her own and barely avoided getting struck. Meanwhile the reptile gave off this tortured roar that was a mixture of agony and fury.
Yoko began casting her fire magics against the large beast monster while the witch descended again.
"I guess I should let you know, I... really can't get any further involved. Since well, we're both under Lord Soma's control. He's only really here to deal with the cults, but uhh... Apparently he's willing to attack you as well it seems."
The awkward confession punctuated by a yawn from the cat as the witch began to rise up, "but I can at least do this..." She soared off into the air, a trail of harmless orbs began drifting down to the ground. Its light danced along the portions of blade that weren't coated in dried blood, illuminating torn and sheared off scales before bursting on the ground. Bubbles that surrendered their form and light once confronted by a stronger mass.
Punctuated by the blasts of stark light that came from the electricity that Galamoth commanded. Revealing the size of the room and how it expanded beyond the marble gallery's walls above. Julius and Yoko began using the stabbing blades to hide from the electric walls of energy Galamoth sent out.
"I think he has some pent up animosity towards Soma and Al," Yoko noted between fireballs.
Julius cracked a half smile at that quip, catching himself before he would have replied to Valencia. Forcing himself to remember this wasn't her, it was her daughter, even as she used similar combat strategies as she began trying to take shots outside of the pillars. The orbs that Galamoth was firing 'were' tracking' unlike the shields.
She danced past the orbs, her own lightning spells plucking away at the larger orbs despite their smaller sizes. They tugged at the larger orbs almost teasingly distracting them from Julius. The swords served as shields protecting him from the walls of electricity that Galamoth was using to try and force them back. Galamoth 'answer' was to extend his free hand outward, trying to shove it through the swords and reach for Yoko.
Only to be rewarded by exposure to holy water and bits of broken glass, igniting his flesh and cauterizing the wounds. Colored lights flickered and danced as bubbles of light drifting to the ground yet didn't impede the flung axes that Julius was able to summon. Pinned down as he was, Galamoth was still a threat, damaging what held him down would only increase the risk of him escaping.
Could Alucard hold Galamoth here?
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The Prince in question was starting to nod off.
Controlling the castle wasn't simple, the amount of Willpower he had to expend was starkly different this time around. Before his father wasn't awaken and Alucards' presence was treated more as a desperate acceptance. The castle 'needed' direction and Alucard was willing to provide it in his effort to deal with Soma.
Now his father was awake, active, and in the Castle. So now every bit of effort resulted in a stilted reaction. Aware of the true master, the Castle wasn't obeying in a structural sense without being pulled twice by Alucard. Though Death had an insightful moment...
"Well, its not as though you are normally giving the castle orders. It knows your Lord Father and how 'he' would react before his reincarnation. How he is now, may be more in line with what 'you' would want, but the Castle hasn't been taught that now has it?" Sharp, clattering of teeth against teeth words were clacked out as the Entity hovered at the door.
"Hey Death! Can we talk for a moment?" Maxine called out from the other side of the door, even as she knocked. But if Death had a reaction It lacked the flesh to reflect it, though Alucard could almost imagine the being raising an eyebrow in mild surprise.
"Go," Alucard replied shortly as he went and settled down in the chair he had been using most of the day.
"Hey Death, how long do we have until the humans who have been turned are stuck turned?" the young womans' voice was not shrieked and probably wouldn't have been heard by a human.
But Alucard could hear it.
"When the clock strikes the 13th hour, you know that mortal," Death replied, Its voice not necessarily 'loud' but just as audible to Alucard.
"Can it be slowed up? Or got a direction to point us where we can go to get them turned back faster?"
There was a mixture of steps, people walking about outside the room, which irritated Alucard. A predatory need to keep the room safe was one thing, but the mass of people below the window was another issue. They hadn't seen Soma, and while Soma was not a selfie taking teenager he 'did' have pictures online. Having his father be found online could lead...
Smoke hissed into life as the fire in the fireplace was snuffed out by a savage side thought. Alucards' gaze fixated on it as he fought to control himself and his emotions. Smoke and fire, his mothers' death tried to play into his thoughts forcing Alucard back to his feet in desperation. Turning back to the shelf of books he began looking for something to read.
"Young Master? May we enter?"
He recognized the sense of a zombie at the door, and the voice implied one of the maids. It was a distraction all the same, "enter."
Said maid appeared and dropped quickly into a demurred curtsy while in her shadow was the boy turned puppet. In his hands was half of a canvas and a skeleton was just out of Alucards' sight possibly holding the other half from what he could see.
"Young Master, the Master wishes this painting to be put in display here," the maid explained as the puppet shuffled into the room. A butler suit clad skeleton was on the other side, helping with the painting. He moved into position revealing that the painting was of part of the room itself. Only the couch that Soma was occupying in the real world was empty and the fireplace was still lit.
"My Lord Father wished you to bring this?"
It was probably a testament to how the servants set about putting up the painting without waiting for permission. A reminder that those who existed in the castle served his Lord Father first, yet...
"How can you hear my Lord Father?"
Could the maid and the butler be two of the souls Soma had absorbed during his time in the castles?
"Well, he showed us," it was the puppet who spoke. The boy that the hunters were now concerned with saving. He spoke without the effort he would have been expending to move such a sizable painting were he still a living human.
"Explain yourself."
"His presence is influencing the paintings, we found him in a small side gallery while we were dusting," the maid explained as she willed up a pair of ladders for her fellow servants.
They moved with the familiarity that he recalled from his youth, when he didn't realize that the undead didn't take up such work among humans. Up the steps the pair went and the castle obliged by placing the necessary hook to hang the painting from. The maid hung back and began directing to ensure the painting was leveled. Above the fireplace it was a strange piece that merely reflected a portion of the room itself.
"'He showed you?'" Alucard repeated, wondering what his father was up to 'now'. 'Even incapacitated, you find ways to cause trouble.'
"Yes, Young Master, this painting was there, and in the next one there was a painting of a city street and he was standing there pointing to this one."
"Charles do not waste the Young Masters' time with such unnecessary chatter," the butler scolded. "He instructed to us through those paintings that he wished for this painting to be in here."
"No, the child has my permission to speak," Alucard countered as he began to study the painting more. 'Father is traveling through the paintings? He used one once before I read...'
"Well uh... He was next to this sign that read 'Galamoth is breaking loose bring that painting to my son...', so we did..." Charles explained, his wooden teeth clattered as he spoke the echo of a soulless puppet that had a soul.